U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,914 to Breitweiser, Jr., et al. (incorporated herein by reference) discloses a musical instrument training system for a stringed musical instrument with fingering and playing displays comprising arrays of multiple LEDs and LCDs embedded in the fingerboard at fixed locations. A notepad display is also embedded in the body for displaying alpha-numeric playing instructions.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,266,735 to Shaffer, et al. (incorporated herein by reference) discloses a stringed musical instrument having a plurality of individual annunciators for dynamically indicating a location for engaging the musical instrument to produce a note.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,005 to Shaffer, et al. (incorporated herein by reference) discloses a fingering display for a musical instrument that includes a number of electrical switches manually operable to designate a desired musical note and subdisplays showing all the possible fingering positions for all the notes of the scale or chord.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,318,327 to Toups (incorporated herein by reference) discloses a digital chord display for stringed musical instruments that provides a real time alpha-numeric display of notes and chords being played.
An article entitled “OPTEK FRET LIGHT FG-100 GUITAR” on pages 134-135 of the January 1990 issue of “Guitar Player” magazine (incorporated herein by reference) discloses a teaching guitar having LEDs inlaid into the fingerboard to indicate selected notes and chords.
However, none of the prior art devices provides a single display capable of indicating positions other than positions for conventional notes and chords on conventionally tuned instruments, and none of such devices provides for display of visual graphic or other non-alphanumeric information on portions or the entirety of the fingerboard, or body, of the instrument.
Graphic displays on the fingerboard or body of stringed instruments are especially desirable because such instruments are not fixed in place, as conventional keyboard instruments are, so that the user can present the display of the musical instrument to the audience while still playing the instrument, and also because stringed instruments can be made in varying sizes and shapes because the musical notes created by such instruments are determined by the tension in the strings instead of the shape and size of the body, as would be the case with woodwind, brass and percussion instruments. Visual displays on large musical instruments that are not moved during performance, such as pianos or stringed bass, also are within the scope of this invention.
Of course, this invention can also be used on instruments that do not use physical strings but that use the same fingering techniques as stringed musical instruments, such as finger-actuated synthesizers having a fingerboard, where the sound is generated by an audio oscillator instead of strings. Indeed, this instrument can also be used on portable or movable keyboard instruments that are held and moved by the player while performing.